~
the 7th of February, 2026
The sound of a familiar, but distant melody woke Jiang Wanyin up, but only barely. His body was aching in multiple places, but none of the pain was strong enough to shake him woken completely.
He was a little surprised. He had no memory of recent events, but he was aware that he was waking up in a dark space, his body warped, bound, and moving in a weird way, without him having the strength to even open his eyes. Something close by was smelling really badly, and someone was grunting, taking heavy steps that echoed in a cold corridor.
He had not regained consciousness enough to wonder why he was in a corridor, and being carried over someone's shoulder, but his mind still sent a few (enough) signals which, in turn, sent him questioning the situation. He surely was used to waking up in a dark place, but it was always soft and warm, safe and golden. He typically woke up in the arms of someone he loved very much, and now cold and sweaty palms were just grabbing at him harshly – it was new. Also, he was friends with pain, but this time his aches were in places too different from the usual. Actually, the usual places were the only ones that didn't ache.
No one saw it, but the memory of sex made him pull his lips into a blissful smile. It might be true that he didn't know where he was, but he remembered love. And that memory of love made him forget all about his current hurting limbs and ribs and head.
The whole thing only lasted seconds, but flashes of love-making and comforting words raced through his head, and Jiang Cheng felt strangely warm and happy. The assurance that his A-Huan was searching for him, and was very soon going to find him – it was a truth in his heart. He knew, he craved another pair of palms to caress him, another scent to surround him, the sound of another's beloved heartbeat to be matching to the rushing beat of his own blood...
He couldn't really realize it, but his love for Lan Xichen ran so very deep that by now any time spent apart seemed like a nightmare to his logical brain, like a bad dream he was just patiently waiting to wake up from. That short trip to Taipei had messed him up worse than he had cared to admit, and even though they had been on the phone and together so often back then, the physical missing of that awesome presence, of that life-giving warmth – it had been palpable to him. Losing an organ had not been too important to him; he had survived it. But "losing" Lan Huan over the period of just several days had felt like a living hell, like some dreadful splitting of his soul, and consequently – the loss of half its pieces.
He needed all, in order to be whole.
If Jiang Wanyin's brain had been working properly, he probably would have wondered about this fresh, unfamiliar addiction in his life. He had never before even guessed that he would be falling so head-over-heels for any living being. But their togetherness, their oneness, had been so excruciatingly real to him that now, in his dizzy state, his brain refused to admit that any of the shit that had been happening to him today, was real at all.
He was drifting away again, but in those last split seconds his smile remained, as pictures of hot kisses and passionate licking and sucking filled his waking brain, filling up his blood stream with uncalled-for happiness hormones, and the rush of adrenaline made him forget all pain on earth, because...
Ah, yes... that smirk, that smile... He was melting! The big palms, boldly claiming access to any part of him, even the forbidden parts... That shameless, beautiful face, the shameless words, the impatient removing of his clothes, the rough groping over off-bounds body places that he loved so much... Ah, but the tight hugs, the breathless kisses that felt like death...
